This Is How Azealia Banks Feels About The Music Industry And Male Rappers Like Kanye West

She believes larger forces played a part in her downfall.

Azealia Banks is in reflective mode for her interview with XXL magazine. The controversial rapper looks back on messy situations and says she has herself to blame, but also points a finger at the music industry.

“I’m definitely shut out from where I was, 100 percent. People are very scared to be associated with me because of, you know, the controversy. I guess, the skin bleaching or the ‘sand n*gger’ or the ‘f*ggot’ thing,’” she said. “I’m not sad about it, I’m not disappointed at the situation. I’m disappointed with myself for sure…I’m a little disappointed in them, but not really.”

As Banks works through her thoughts, she said there’s a double standard in the music industry. Male artists get more chances after their slip-ups, while women can get easily tossed. Banks mentioned Kanye West, XXXTentacion, and R. Kelly as examples.

“I guess the source of my disappointment comes from just watching lots of other men in hip hop … male rappers, have their career setbacks and go through things,” she said. “Or even when a Black male rapper misspeaks something … just seeing Black men go through the motions, seeing the Black mass just kind of seemingly accepting it as just an attribute of their artistry.”

Banks also said she felt like an outsider as soon as she entered the music scene. Where oftentimes new rappers get a co-sign from a major rapper, Banks believes she never got that support. “I basically came in the building by myself. There was nobody to validate me, there was nobody to vouch for me or whatever, and I got mishandled a lot,” she said. “It made me really bitter for a very long time, very, very, very bitter, so bitter to the point that I would just kind of say things that I didn’t mean, like, ‘I hate Black men’ and sh*t like that. I would just say things like that because I would just feel so misunderstood. It was all purposeful, like when T.I. was threatening me with physical violence or when Jim Jones was threatening me with physical violence. Come on, hip hop should have said something about it, and nobody said anything about it.”

You can read more of what the “212” rapper has to say, including her thoughts on Cardi B and her evolution as an artist, over at XXL.